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Some Weekend Sports Media Thoughts

Posted by on Apr 5, 2014 22:35

Time for a long overdue sports media post. You get three columns-in-one. Nice concept for you.

If you don’t know the name Sandy Grossman in the pantheon of sports television, you should. He was the “A” director on the NFL on CBS and Fox, the NBA on CBS, the NHL on Fox and directed two Olympics for the Tiffany Network. Grossman died last week at the age of 78 after a battle with cancer.

Grossman knew he wanted to be in sports broadcasting, but realized he wouldn’t do by calling sports. So he decided to call the shots instead by becoming a director through a rather circuitous route, first by ushering for the Ed Sullivan Show then eventually becoming a production assistant for CBS Sports.He directed a record 10 Super Bowls on CBS and Fox working mostly with Pat Summerall and John Madden as well as Tom Brookshier.

He helmed 18 NBA Finals working with the likes of Brent Musburger, Gary Bender, Dick Stockton, Bill Russell, Rick Barry, Tom Heinsohn, Billy Cunningham and Hubie Brown.His Stanley Cup Finals work was with Mike Emrick and John Davidson. As you can see, he worked with some of sports broadcasting’s best. With Madden, Grossman used film to prepare for each game, and then passed his knowledge to his cameramen to inform them what to shoot for each game. Grossman miked coaches, used music going to breaks and put cameras under the basket, all standard on broadcasts today.

Both the MLB on Fox Sports 1 pregame show and the CBS-produced Final Four Show on TBS paid tribute to Grossman on Saturday. His legacy on both networks will live on for quite some time.
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Well, guess what baseball fans heard on Fox Sports 1 Saturday

For the last few years, Fox has opted to use the NFL on Fox theme as the main music for all sports. It took over broadcasts including college football, the Champions League Final, MLB, NASCAR as well as the NFL. While the baseball theme was used on the local Fox Sports Net broadcasts, fans were clamoring for the return of the MLB on Fox music on national games which they heard on Saturday.

It was actually used on MLB Whiparound which premiered last week, but to hear it before yesterday’s Cleveland at Minnesota game on Fox Sports 1 was truly refreshing. We’ll see if it returns to the main Fox network later in the season.
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Noticed on Twitter Saturday that not everyone was aware of the Turner localized “Teamcasts” for the NCAA Men’s Final Four. By doing a search for “Florida TNT” and “Kentucky TNT,” there were complaints from fans thinking TNT was biased, not realizing that Turner was producing local feeds for all four schools. Yes, CBS and Turner did promote the “Teamcast” concept, but it appears not everyone got the message even with “Teamcast” banners on TNT and truTV’s telecasts.

Having watched a little bit of the all of the Teamcasts, we really didn’t get much of the homerism that one normally would hear from home radio calls, but I believe as Turner does this again in 2015 and 2016, you might get increased rooting. Eric Frede did a very professional call on the UConn-centric truTV telecast. David Steele on Florida was good on TNT. Wayne Larrivee, familiar to Wisconsin fans as the Voice of the Green Bay Packers did give more of an inflection for the Badgers than Kentucky. And Rob Bromley who called the Kentucky Teamcast had a little rust having not called a game in five years, but having former Wildcat Rex Chapman and Dave Baker as the reporter, you had some real Big Blue Nation-centric commentary.

Overall, it’s a novel concept and we’ll see if each broadcast got big numbers in the home markets of Hartford-New Haven, in CT, Lexington and Louisville in Kentucky, Gainesville in Florida and Milwaukee and Madison in Wisconsin.

I wonder if CBS/Turner will do even more promotion for the Teamcasts next year. Charles Barkley even scolded viewers for not paying attention. Maybe we need Charles yelling at them every 15 minutes or so.

And that will do it for the thoughts for now.

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013. He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television. Fang celebrates the three Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.

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